A spot of pruning A
T this time of year, more than an any other time of year, I miss our old house in France.
There was always something truly magical about the place in the misty Autumn weeks, and the memories are still strong and highly evocative; driving out of a thick fog and emerging out onto the wide Aubrac plateau in full sunshine, the hills peeking out like green islands in a white sea of cloud.
The steam rising from the noses of the neighbours’ horses as they peered over our fence in search of the apples they knew I’d bought for them.
Spiders webs, heavy with dew, twinkling like amber jewellery in the low sun. T
he dazzling Autumn shades of the forest across the valley, and the smell of woodsmoke heavy in the air.
I miss seeing the little vegetable patches in quiet villages, still full of their enormous orange pumpkins, food to last out the coming Winter.
And I miss the food as much as anything; our Autumn trips were always the best for food, whether it was firing up the raclette machine and grilling ourselves into a cheese coma or just roasting a chicken with fat wedges of squash.
We’d make pans of aligot, that ambrosial blend of mashed potato, garlic and fresh curd cheese, which becomes superelastic and fluffy as clouds all at the same time – beautiful with a steak or tasty local sausages.
A bottle or two of the local Marcillac would inevitably be opened, too!
And Tracy would make her version of the local Aveyron speciality, pounti.
Pounti is the region concentrated down into one single dish – a wonderful warm meatloaf made with local pork, prunes from just a little further south in the Tarn region, and plenty of Swiss chard, known in France as blette.
Pork and prunes get on famously in any dish, and this is no exception.
The local variety of chard appears to love the rich soil there, and grows to colossal sizes, the stalks sometimes as wide as the span of ones hand, and the leaves big enough to wrap a football.
The approved method of cooking is to strip off the leaves and shred them, then finely chop the stalks and simmer in butter or stock (or both) until tender, then add the greenery.
It’s rich, super-tasty and you can almost feel the iron supercharging your bloodstream as you eat.
In the absence of any chard, I decided to recreate the flavours of my beloved pounti and make a version ‘en croute,’ like a big Aveyron sausage roll.
My lovely mum had brought us an enormous bag of Agen prunes from her holiday last Summer and we still had plenty in the fridge, so I decided to make the most of them – Agen prunes aren’t so easy to find these days in the UK for some reason, but don’t worry if you can’t source any – semi-dried prunes of any kind will do.
It’s just that the Agen variety are so sweet and soft, they really do lift this dish.
And they make a brilliant ketchup, too.
Sweet, tangy and smooth, you’ll find it a handy thing to have around for leftover pork or cheese sandwiches.
A little blob of mash and perhaps a salad or some steamed greens are all that is required to bring the dish together into a harmonious whole, and for me it’s Aveyron on a plate.